stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen! >> stephen: good to have you with us, ladies and gentlemen! (cheers and applause) folks, it is no secret, it is absolutely no secret why there is electricity in the air tonight. nation, it is election eve. just hours left in the 2012 campaign. both camp dats-- can dats are pulling out all the stops. >> here is the president's final two day, florida, new hampshire, colorado, ohio, wisconsin and eye watch. let me show you the mitt romney schedule. he's trying to go into pennsylvania. it's florida, it's virginia, it's new hampshire. >> stephen: so if you live in one of these states, "the colbert report" is now issuing a severe candidate warning. be prepared with fresh water and flashlights and please, if you have a single working class female suburban undecided vote never your

home, cover her with plywood. or she could just get sukd up into a vortex of pandering. now folks, over a year ago i promised to make you a player in this election thanks to colbert super pac. you know our motto, making a better tomorrow -- >> tomorrow! >> stephen: i remember when i came up with that slogan. seems just like yesterday, yesterday. if are you looking for a little proof of just how influential we have been in this election, well, listen mitt romney today. giving his closing arguments. >> your work is making a difference. the people of the world are watching. the people of america are watching. we could begin a better tomorrow tomorrow. >> stephen: he used our slogan! (cheers and applause)

i love you! folks, i think-- i think that proves that m itt is a candidate just as serious and sincere as i am. (laughter) i mean my words, his mouth. i feel like i'm a billionaire. (laughter) now of course that does not mean that mitt's campaign and my super pac are coordinating in anyway. in fact, i have no official relationship to either campaign. i haven't even signed up for any of their e-mails but somehow and this is true, last week the obama people just found me. and have been sending me e-mails. of course it just started last week so i've only received 600 of them. (laughter) but one of my favorites was from literary legend and only poet you ever heard of maya angelou. maya wrote-- go!

rise up. and let your friends and family in early voting states. go where they can go today. we must make our voices heard. (applause) i know why the cage bird-- no doubt the gop is sending out e-mails from romney pote laureate kid rock. something along the lines of waterer to water, bang a dang diggy diggy diggy tax cuts! fun fact, like the other kids who support mitt romney,

kid rock is 41. (laughter) both campaigns are making a huge push, folks, because they know it all comes down to one thing,. >> is it all going to be about voter turnout. >> yes, here and in most of the other battleground state. >> voter turnout is going to mean everything. >> it all comes down to turnout in these final hours. >> it really all boils down to how many voters turn out. >> stephen: there is a lot of technical jargon in there. let me break it down four. the candidate who has more voters is going to win. (laughter) that is the best analysis cable news has done since the 6 part cnn series bears, do they [bleep] in the woods. (applause) turns out, turn out-- turn out the vote is particularly crucial for obama because while polls show him ahead of mitt romney among registered voters, among

likely voters they're tied. although among unlikely voters they're both being beaten by a honey boo boo marathon. now ot bama campaign needs to get those registered voters to become likely voters. and folks, they have a secret weapon to do it. according to a "the new yorker" article on the obama campaign, the best way to mobilize voters, they discovered, is through shame. something catholics have known for centuries. that's why jesus keeps getting re-elected. a 2006 study found that get out the vote fliers using shame and guilt increased turnout by as much as 8 points. so the campaigns are using data mining to learn everything they can to shame march to you the polls. for instance they know whether voters have visited pornography web sites, have homes in foreclosure, are more prone to drink michelob ultra than core ono or have

gay friends or enjoy expensive vacations. i mean they could shame you into voting by threatening to reveal that you and your gay friends watch porn together on expensive vacations. (laughter) or even worse, that you drink michelob ultra. (applause) folks, of course barack obama is the leader in shame-based campaigning. mitt has a handicap because given how many times he's flipped positions, he may not understand the concept of shame. the point is-- (applause) both campaigns will-- a hand for mitt, give it up for mitt. point is-- both campaigns may know more about you than you do. so please welcome a journalist who may know more about what they know than they may know he knows.

columnist and author of the book the victory slade sasha eisenberg. thank you so much for joining me. (applause) now sasha i got the book here. it is called the victory lab and the subtitle is the secret science of winning campaigns. what is the secret science of winning campaigns? because in some red states all science is secret. so what does this do? >> what campaigns want to do is collect a lot of data but and run algorithms and figure out how likely are you to vote for their candidate. >> stephen: do they turn me into a computer program. >> they obama has came-- campaign has a idea they think there is a 09 percent chance will you support obama as of today. >> stephen: their models are way off, why, why, what is it about me, what do they know about me. >> they have a thousand different data points about you. they know from your voter registration record, what party, how your precinct vorkts your sense of track,

your socioeconomic status they think or race or ethnicity and collect information from private sector data warehouses that has information on the things you buy or information you have given out when you fill out a warranty form. >> stephen: if they have information what would they glean from this, i love lemonade, i subscribe to "golf" magazine. i like deep pile shag carpet and believe poor people should be euthanized. what would you get from that, where am i leaning there. >> the last one they have predictive power but the other ones are things the campaigns have access to but don't use to make a political prediction. the stuff that helps is often the most boring. >> stephen: where are they getting this information about me. >> a lot of the commercial information is coming when you fill out a warranty form or enter a sweepstake and check your household income is between 50 and $75,000 or they have a college education or that you take six vacations a year that information gets collected by the people that develop credit rating scores and campaigns want to dot same as credit ratings for politics. >> stephen: like a voting rating score. >> they want to make a

prediction. how likely to vote for their candidate, to vote at all, or to choice. >> stephen: with level are we talking about, are they measuring my bloc or are they measuring me. >> you. >> stephen: no longer stalker mom t is like deb ra, and brenda and daphne. >> and it is not counties and precincts either. >> stephen: it is individuals. >> individual level prediction for all 170 million american adults who are registered to vote. and they will-- . >> stephen: should i be as terrified as i feel right now? >> what are you afraid they might know about you. so-- . >> stephen: things that i won't tell you. >> they collect this information because they want to create a meaningful relationship with you. they want to have an-- the same way that maybe you put a probe into a monkey's brain to have a meaningful relationship with it. >> right. so i think they are coming out with a more psychologically meaningful idea of what motivates people to go out and vote. >> stephen: how does this shame work. like they say we're going to tell people you like going to web sites that show animals dressed up as other animals.

>> in the 2006 study you mentioned was in michigan. voters were randomly assigned to receive several different letters one said something like dear steph en, your history as a voter is a publicly available document with the county board of election. here is your history, you voted in the state, in the city, here is your neighbor's vote history and other people on your block and whether they voted in those same elections and then there was a threat. there is another election coming up and we will send everybody an updated set. >> stephen: literally threatening to tell your neighbor wloos you voted. >> right. that where you get that increase of 8% that people might have felt that being exposed in front of their neighbors as a bad citizen matters. >> stephen: but liss february a guy sends me an e-mail with a threat in it, why wouldn't i just say [bleep] you i'm voting for the other guy that is kind of terrible. >> these are often nonpartisan (cheers and applause) what they are doing is going to people they know would vote for their candidate or side and trying to turn them from nonvoters into varieties -- not about changing their mind but

modifying their behavior. >> stephen: these are people you know how they will vote. are you trying to get them out of the house. >> that's right. >> stephen: what about setting their house on fire for election day so they have no place to go. >> so you know there are a lot of different techniques. >> stephen: that is too cutting edge for you. thank you so much for joining me. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: sasha eisenberg. the book is the victory lab, the future, folks. we'll be right back. $ 6cdr$erf

>> stephen: welcome back, everybody. thank you so much. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: folks, we are 12 minutes closer to election day. and as of 11:43100 zulu time there is only one way to describe this race. >> the race is as tight as they come. >> this race is absolutely razor tight. >> the look at other national polls confirm it's razor tight. >> we've seen the polls razor tight. >> this race remains razor tight. >> stephen: yes, this race is razor tight. that means no margin for error or correct use of metaphor. i mean it's banana up for grabs. but-- folks every prediction out there, every prediction needs a pooper. in this case, "new york times" polling jedi nate silver who in 2008 correctly predicted 49 out of 50 states. but you know what they say,

even a stopped clock is right 98% of the time. the silver's got a computer model that uses petroleum bo jumbo like weighted polling average, trend line adjustment and linear regression analysisment but ignores proven methodologies like flag pin size, handshake strength and intensity of debate glare. and as of tonight, folks, silver is predicting that obama has an 86.3% chance of winning re-election. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: yeah. i don't buy it either. where does he get off predicting something other than the agreed narrative? i mean what part of razor tight does he not understand? (laughter) that just makes me so crab claw angry. (laughter) now folks, i am not the only

one tarnishing silver's sterling reputation. (laughter) (applause) no, so is jo sqlo starbucks with mika and the morning willie. >> nate silver says this is a 73.6% chance that the president is going to win. anybody that thinks that this race is anything but a toss up right now is such an idealogue they should be kept away from typewriters because they're jokes. >> stephen: yeah, silver and his math are jokes. because math has a liberal bias. after all, math is the reason mitt romney's tax plan doesn't add up. (laughter) (applause) >> stephen: folks, there's only one way, i'm telling you, there is only one way

to call this race. as scarborough himself wrote, my gut tells me there are two likely scenarios. one, president obama will squeak out a narrow electoral college victory or two, mitt romney will carry ohio and be swept into office by a comfortable margin. after 20 years in politics, five election cycles grinding it out on msnbc, joe's gut is telling him either obama will win or romney will win. i mean where does he find the courage? (applause) when we return i will bring that kind of take no prisoner's ball swinging to my guest "the new york times" 538 blogger nate silver. we'll be right back. (cheers and applause)

>> welcome back, my guest tonight belongs to "the new york times". and that's all i'm going to tell you so you get past the pay wall. please welcome nate silver. (cheers and applause) nate, good to see you again, sit down. all right, nate, welcome back. >> thank you, stephen. >> stephen: last name you were here four years ago, okay, before the last section, you're welcome, gave you the colbert bump, now you got a job, where do you work now.

>> i work at the "new york times" now. >> stephen: nice place to work. >> it's a nice place. nice building, yeah. >> stephen: okay, all right, so the nice tees are aside. okay, gloves are coming off. you have got a book called "the signal and the noise, why so many predictions fail but some don't" let me guess. >> right. >> stephen: yours don't. (laughter) i'm stabbing the dark on that one. >> they could but we'll tell you how likely they are to fail is so we have kind of truth in advertising. >> stephen: okay, but here's my problem with what you are doing. is that you are taking bread out of my kid's mouth. because i am a pundit, okay. those of us in the punditocracy make our bread and butter by telling people what the truth is as we see it from our gut. >> yeah. >> stephen: right. >> yeah. >> stephen: yeah. are you trying to put the pundit out of work because cnn doesn't need any more help. >> oh, i think it should

be-- (applause) >> i'm just trying to explain to people that the pundits can be very entertaining but it's not really-- . >> stephen: what is your opinion of the pundits, shoot from the hip. >> i'm not a big-- i'm not very pro pundit, i have to say. i would vote against-- . >> stephen: come on, put your balls on the felt, how do you feel about pundits. >> if pundits were on the ballot against like, i don't know, e bolla i might vote ebola. or third party. >> stephen: third party, you write in black plague. now my buddy joe scarborough, joe morning and scarborough, he-- you bet him 1,000 that your predictive model was correct. $1,000 that would go to red cross. >> yeah, yeah. >> stephen: he didn't take the bet. >> he didn't take the bet. maybe it -- look, i used to play poker and in my world, it shows you have integrity to be putting your money behind an idea that you have, it means are you being serious and you actually

have incentive to be accuratement are you not just tanning there blowing hot air, potentially. >> stephen: uh-huh. >> and joe to his credit did donate, make a donation on my behalf and i donated as well so it wound up being for a good cause but i think a lot of people get on tv and say things they don't really have any conviction behind them t becomes a game just to entertain past the audience, half the audience or the other half of the audience or whatever else, right. and we're trying to say something very simple which is that, hey, go and look at the polls. and take an average. and then add up the states and see who has 27 o-- 270 electoral votes it is not that complicated it is not like galileo or something, something totally theoretical. no, look, these polls are pretty simple little facts, right. there are many things that are much more complicated than looking at the polls and taking an average, right, and couldn'ting to 270, right. >> stephen: that is the longest possible way of calling him a bull [bleep] (cheers and applause)

>> but here's the thing, dow believe in your physical analysis obviously. >> yeah. >> stephen: but everybody does. the rasmussen believe in theirs, and gallop believes in their. and ttt and rasmussen goes right and tpt goes left but are you the only honest man in america. >> no, i'm not the only but i think-- . >> stephen: they say they are not right and are you. >> the bar is low, man. >> stephen: razor tight what part of razor tight don't you get? >> like there are 23 state polls and obama was ahead in 22 of them it is not a coin toss at that point. it's close, but you have to have a case where the polls are off across-the-board. it could happen. but if anything the race has broken toward president obama a bit in the last 48 hours or so. >> stephen: do you, we'll edit that out. do you-- if the race has broken toward obama, okay, he's always been ahead in your poll, right. >> he's been ahead in the forecast, yeah. >> stephen: in your forecast,

sorry in your forecast. so i mean 86 what is the percentage right now. >> i think it's going to go above, it's actually running, the model in the green room. >> stephen: so if i threw a bucket of water on it obama would lose? nate silver, thank you so much for joining me. nate silver, the signal and the noise. we'll be right back. (cheers and applause) good luck.

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>> that's it for the report, everybody. go, captioning sponsored by comedy central captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org